City council ran the gambit of discussion during Monday’s executive committee meeting.

In addition to tentatively agreeing that voluntary snow removal is the way to go and that a handful of committees they deem as redundant will be dissolved, as reported in Tuesday’s Daily Herald, council discussed the following items.

Since Monday’s meeting was an executive committee meeting, everything decided by council is tentative until next Monday’s city council meeting.

Fluoride injection

Almost a year after meeting with city council in hopes of convincing them to stop injecting fluoride into Prince Albert’s drinking water, Maureen Logue is following up.

With nothing coming out of her presentation, she’s trying again. On Monday, a new city council considered an anti-fluoride letter Logue wrote to them.

Fluoride, she wrote, is a contaminant, and may pose a legal liability, and is a waste of funds.

“In the States, the (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) admits that 41 per cent of children between 12 and 15 have fluorosis, and that monetary damages for veneers and dental care would be about $50,000 per child.”

First to speak up on Monday was Coun. Charlene Miller, who motioned for council to seek more information on the subject before making a decision during next week’s city council meeting.

Her hope, she said, is to seek someone to “explain how important it is to actually put it into our water.”

On that note, Mayor Greg Dionne said that it’s not a cut-and-dry discussion.

He said that he asked six dentists their opinion of fluoride injection into the city’s drinking water.

“Three think it’s wonderful, three think it’s awful,” he said.

The city hasn’t been injecting fluoride into its drinking water for about a year, the city’s director of public works Colin Innes said, due to ongoing upgrades to the facility.

“I should let everybody know, though, that part of our river water is a naturally occurring level of (fluoride), so all the city is really topping up the level that’s there,” he said.

Seeking even more information than Miller requested, Coun. Martin Ring asked that dental professionals from the University of Saskatchewan also be contacted to provide council with information.

Having also talked to a few dentists about the fluoridation debate, he said, “they’ve all got differing positions on it.”

“This is what we talk about now, but 50 years from now, if there’s tooth decay and such, is it going to be attributed to us not putting fluoride in the water? That’s going to be an argument that we may never see settled out, here.” …

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